Everest: Your Motivation Companion

I have yet to come across a person who isn’t ambitious or aspiring to make his or her dreams come true. In plenty of scenarios, people go about with their relatively mundane lives in the hope that one day their dreams will actually come true. It could be anything from becoming a billionaire to launching a cupcake business or developing a mobile app on the side. No matter the size of the goal, it takes a lot of hard work and some motivation to follow through and get going.

For the hard working folks amongst us who are looking to mingle with like minded folks for motivation and encouragement, the Internet has become the go-to platform. Everest leverages the power of both the Internet and mobile to help you connect with inspiring people and to stay focused and motivated. Lets us take it for a spin after the break.

Getting Started

In just three slides shown when you first open the app, Everest gives the user a very clear idea as to what one can expect. Past the tour, you aren’t forced immediately to sign up or login. This indeed is a great user experience idea that I wish many other apps in the app store would start using as well.

To fuel your imagination and to give a glimpse into what other people are planning with the app, an endless stream of ideas are presented. The design of the user interface and the presentation of the stream is really nice to look at and the design elements against a white background offer a soothing effect.

Sifting through dreams and saving them.

Use of images enhance the effect of the idea. So does the “I would like to join” button. It’s true that we might not know at all times what we want to do and Everest is a great place to start. There are just so many inspiring ideas to choose from!

Before committing yourself by pressing the “I want to do this” button, take a look at the brilliantly thought out status messages. There are currently two of them — one that indicates if the person is just thinking of doing it or has actually started working on their dream. Personally, I would suggest that you check out the dreams where people are putting effort to make them come true, rather than subscribing to a ton of “I might do it someday” ideas.

A Look at the Dream

As I noted earlier, you can save the dreams you intend to do by pressing the “I want to do this” button. The app saves them all for you. But, to actually start working on it, you’ll have to create an account or sign in. Facebook connect is a quick way to gain access and there is the conventional sign-up form as well.

Creating your own dream and figuring out ways to achieve it.

After logging in, you’ll be taken straight to the dreams section which lists out the ones you have saved. Before diving in, let us check out the ways to explore for challenges and dreams.

Exploring Dreams

A thoughtful design masks the daunting five-tab layout cleverly and evokes curiosity. The tabs to the right are dedicated to exploring what others are doing and what you might want to take on as a challenge.

Exploring dreams and challenges.

The news feed like view to see what steps others are taking to accomplish their goals is nicely done. And, the best part is you can simply copy those steps and add them to your list of tasks.

Breaking Down the Dreams

Breaking down dreams and challenges to multiple, manageable chunks is the next logical step. You can add a step and select the dream that’s associated to it. Adding notes and thoughts to keep track of something related to the task makes sure you have got all the info you need to do in a single location.

Breaking down a dream into manageable chunks.

If you look closely, Everest resembles a well designed to-do app with an interesting wrapper. You’ll find all the standard features of a modern day task management app. There are deadlines and reminders. There is a repeat functionality to take redundancy out of the equation. And there is a neat screen that lists out tasks that are ahead of you in the coming days.

Setting reminders and the calendar view.

All in all, there is no way you could go wrong by choosing Everest as your motivation companion. Even if the social motivation isn’t helping you, the stellar task manager definitely will.

Final Thoughts

Any way you slice it, Everest looks like a winner. There are ton of motivation, habit forming and goal tracking apps in the App Store. Checking off or striking off everyday that you have accomplished a task and watching the chain grow is one great way to do things. The regular check off when done is another.

Everest stands tall in its own right. In the age of epic attention deficit disorders, a phenomenal user experience is what spells success for an app. From that standpoint, Everest wins over the competition hands down. Everest is for those of us who need some external stimuli to move forward.